Final Stand
by Scritch
Summary: A warrior remembers and tries to forget as she makes the final stand against the machines. - Based on the battle at the end of Reloaded. Completed one-shot. Read and review! Better than the summary


**Final Stand**

Disclaimer: I don't own the Matrix. I wish I did. I do own the character Saga.

Summary: A seasoned warrior remembers and tries to forget as she waits for the final battle to start, as well pondering the truth and meaning of what is about to happen.

A/N: We don't yet know how the battle went, as Revolutions hasn't come out yet. If the battle is at all shown once the movie comes out, please forgive me for any errors I might make. In the meantime, enjoy! Rated PG-13 for some very quick 

**D**arkness surrounded them, lit only by the blue lights that made the air crackle with electricity, sending power through the fleet of metal hovercrafts waiting in the underground tunnel. Any sound made quivered in the air and echoed, dissipating and making the air thicker with tension.

            Alone on the deck of a particular ship stood a woman. She was a seasoned warrior; her black hair cascading down her back was duller than it had been in her youth, her face lined and marked by age and too much stress. Her clothing was threadbare, and the fingerless gloves on her calloused hands seemed to be the best quality cloth of every other stitch on her slim body. Clutched in her hands was a large, heavy weapon, but her arms did not shake from the weight of it. She stood motionless, her eyes staring out at the dark, yawning chasm around her into nothing.

            A few hundred meters above the earth ceiling that so many eyes were turned to, heavy machinery worked at an insane pace. Drilling down through stone and earth, yet above the machinery hundreds of thousands of many-eyed and –armed metal creatures swarmed. Their actions were startlingly human: they resembled an army eager to launch the assault on their unsuspecting foe.

            How disturbingly true.

            An over-eager sentinel sped towards the gaping hole and down, following the light of the digging machine below it. Sensors on full alert, it paused at an alcove to explore deeper. Touching ground, it tapped the stone beneath it.

            Saga sighed and shifted the gun in her arms wearily. She dared not put it down, but allowed her muscles to relax for the first time in hours.

            One last battle, and then she could rest. Saga had been a willing participant in many skirmishes in her lifetime, both in and out of the dream-world of the Matrix. Inside she had spent the first 16 years of her life under control. Since then she'd gone back in to release others who had been in the same position as her and fought and fled more technology in the form of deadly programs. Outside the Matrix she now lived, on the cold metal ship of the Xerxes where hunger and a need for survival reigned over her, and the only relief she could find was when she went to Zion.

            Zion. The city was a second home to her, the first her ship. In Zion she could remember what she fought for every day. In Zion she could see the indirect fruits of her labours – the lives of so many innocents.

            In the false reality of the Matrix… she could no longer remember her life then. Fellow crewmembers told her that she'd created an invulnerable virus that ravaged computer systems in all the states surrounding her and that of the government headquarters, unable to be stopped. Until an alien power told her the truth of the lie she was living and she was thrust into the battle of life she fought now. On occasion, a freed soul who still remembered her days of hacking glory would tell her the story over again. She remembered some things, not so much as the act that bought her fame from inside and attention from without, but glimpses of memories long past. A family. Four blurred faces – two adult, two child. She didn't know if she was one of those faces or not. Not anymore.

            The only family she had now was that on her ship. Them and…  _him._

_            He_ was what had made her get up every morning that she felt she couldn't go on, years ago. The thought of seeing his sweet face and stealing a few moments alone once their ships docked. Separated for so long, his face was always what she saw, even when her physical eyes stared at a leaky drain, wrench in hand, or a faulty engine. The corners of Saga's lips curled up into what could be called a smile. She tried to grasp his picture in her mind's eye, panicking for a moment and her lips went tight when all she saw was a blur. Slowly it came into focus, and she traced his features lovingly even as she remained motionless, remembering sweet times full of pleasure. A party in Zion, a hurried, stolen moment against a wall as their crewmates searched for them, an hour of love all to themselves in his cell.

            Now he was still what made her get up every morning. His memory, and the thought of exacting her revenge on that which killed him. She dared not utter or even think his name. Her brows knitted together in a frown, and now her arms did start to shake as she took up her weapon again. Her knuckles turned white as she clutched the handle. Bloody metal cans. Had they blood, she'd see her hands stained with it by the time the day was done. Had they the ability to feel actual pain, she'd slowly crush them under her boot and revel in every moment that the thing suffered. 

Tears sparked in her eyes, and Saga blinked rapidly, angry that she allowed her emotions to go so far as to the think the impossible. She reached a hand up to scrub the salty drops of liquid from her face as the few escapees traveled slowly down, erasing them as she did his memory from her mind.

Someone whispered her name. The woman turned to see a young man poke his head up from inside the ship, his fingers drumming nervously on the metal shell as his pale eyes darted back and forth, then flickered to her face.

"That gun fully charged?" Hybrid asked, his voice a hushed whisper, low as if the very air were glass and too much noise could shatter it. He drew his hand back inside and the other shot out, his nail-bitten fingers continuing to drum and tap the ship's casing. It was an old habit. The boy was restless, feeling useless in the lull at the same time fearing the coming storm.

Saga patted the gun but did not turn it on. The cold metal could be felt even through her gloves, but she did not wince. Transforming her face into a rare expression – compassion – she motioned for the boy to go back to his former duties. He nodded quickly in understanding, then disappeared, leaving Saga alone with her thoughts once again. To her right, two more ships flew up from a tunnel to position themselves.

The woman sighed in regret. The boy was newly unplugged – only 6 months – and she'd hoped that he would have had longer before he experienced battle. In the Matrix, the freedom fighters were able to download the knowledge they needed to survive. In the cold, harsh reality of the true world around them, such abilities could not help them. A squiddy wouldn't come down to do hand-to-hand combat (thought it would probably win, judging by the amount of arms the things possessed); the machines chose to fight dirty. She refused to acknowledge that they were becoming smarter, staying just out of EMP range when they attacked ships and instead destroying by using cleverly made bombs. Further technology on their part had created the machines that now dug to the destruction of the entire human race.

It was the one she lost that had helped send back proof of the machines' plans. That was one memory that Saga would never forget.

It had been a quiet day on the ship. There were few sentinels in the tunnels that the Xerxes took on their way back to Zion, no problems had arisen. Saga and the crew were in the mess hall, joking and congratulating Hybrid on his first accomplishment in the Matrix._ The door creaked open; all heads looked up and silence reigned at the look on the captain's face. "I've just come off transmission with Myrrh, the captain from the Spirit," Kade said, sounding weary. His shoulders were slumped, his face ashen. Saga's heart stopped. Never had he looked this way. Nothing could have happened to…could it? "The Osiris was overtaken by sentinels just yesterday. No one survived." _It wasn't until later that they found that the deaths were not in vain, that they had delivered news of the enemy. To Saga, it didn't matter.

Very little mattered, now, to Saga. She was old for a warrior – she had survived longer than most. Sheer will and the memory of loss kept her going. Sometimes she felt that her body would simply give out; and sometimes, she wished it would.

In Zion, the speech from Captain Morpheus had confused her in contrast with the orders from Commander Locke that her captain had received. Did not Morpheus believe differently than that of everyone else? He believed that Neo was the One, sent to fulfill the prophecy. Saga had never met either of the two men, but she'd been to see the Oracle. The old woman had intimidated her with her strange words, spoken to her through a mouthful of cigarette smoke. Such strange words from someone who could be any child's grandmother, sitting at her kitchen table, offering her a chocolate-flavoured cake piece that she knew Saga wouldn't take. _"Hold on to what you can get, too few opportunities are there in your world." _Saga felt that she had failed. What had she held onto that had not slipped through her fingers? Her own faith diminished in the Oracle, she did not know whether or not to trust the words given to her people by the old woman that someone as known as Morpheus believed, with proof in the shape of the man he said would save them.

If Morpheus was right, why were they in position to counter-attack? Saga put down her gun and rubbed her arms, her fingers gliding gently over scars obtained over simple scraps and work. It was all too complicated for her. She would fight, do her duty – then perhaps it would finally all be over– Something tapped above her head. Her neck shot up to look into the darkness, her spine perfectly straight in her back. The tapping sounded only for a moment, but it was not the metallic scraping or soft drumming she would hear from Hybrid.

A gentle breeze to her right blew at her hair…a breeze? Perhaps just another one of the ships setting up into position…? Light caught the corner of Saga's eye, and she turned just in time to see the wave of energy surge towards her.

_EMP! Electro-magnetic pulse! Someone screwed up! _Thoughts raced through her mind, and she could only drop her gun and cross her arms over her face as the energy weapon came closer and closer…

Saga dropped her arms in horror as the wave of energy retreated only meters away from her ship – others were not so lucky. She saw four ships surrounding the culprit convulse and drop to the ground with a shuddering crash. She could faintly hear shrieks as one ship collided with another coming towards it to position itself, sending the two to the rocks below. The hatch behind her burst open, and she turned, grasping her weapon as her captain, Hybrid, and another crewmember crawled up to join her on the deck. Their jaws dropped as they surveyed the damage. Hybrid dashed past her to look below – she had to catch him with one arm to keep the boy from falling.

"Shit! Saga?" Kade started, turning to his eldest fighter. "What-?"

The woman's eyes were fixed at the ceiling of the cavern directly above her, oblivious to that around her. One hand holding her gun at her side, the other slowly lifted up as a rain of dust and pebbles fell into her open palm, the rest crumbling at her feet.

"They're here."

All hell broke loose as in five different places, rock, earth and stone burst from the ceiling and gaping holes created were instantly filled with the enemy. Ignoring those around her, Saga lifted her gun, flipped a switch and a beam of blue energy burst forth. Never once keeping her eyes off the approaching army, she kept her gun firing. Someone shouted at Hybrid to take another – it was her. She couldn't hear her own voice over the chaos that ensued, but seconds later the boy was next to her, shaking violently as he fumbled with his weapon.

All around her there were screams as the swarms of machines overtook them. In another second they would be directly on her. Saga turned and fired; a third burst into flames. Too few of their kind that fell, too many of her own that did. She looked around her. Almost all ships were down. _Massacre…_there was no battle, only a slaughter. The metal beneath her feet lurched, and she saw black as something hit her on the head, sending her crashing to the ground, dashing her on the rocks. Pain shot through her body, and she felt something snap. She looked up, and saw the Xerxes fall, almost as if in slow-motion to her eyes, to destruction with all the others around it. The last thing she held dear to her was gone. Her sharp eyes caught a small figure in their vision as it fell onto a rock, and scrambled up, bent over in pain.

_Hybrid._

The boy didn't see the sentinel as it came up behind him. _Run, run! _There was no use. Saga found herself hooked, being drawn into the youth's death as he turned, a cry escaping his lips – she saw them part, and thought that above all the din she could hear it, tearing at her heart – and then was speared through the chest, the machine's long arm appearing out the back of him, then tossing his broken body away as though it were a doll.

Red eyes filled her vision, and all time seemed to halt around her. She looked to her left as the machine raised itself up, lifting its arms in preparation to kill her. There was her gun, only feet away. If only she could reach it, she stretched her hand out…

_Pain! Painpainpainpainpainpain…_

Then nothing, blissful numbness spread through her body, her vision fading…in her mind, she drew up the memory of his face. Dark eyes and curls…she would see him soon, and everything would be as it was before…

The sentinel moved on, filled with bloodlust and glee as it flew away from the dead woman's body, a gentle smile curving on her lips as she went cold.


End file.
